Golden Jubilee

It began on October 20th. My oldest son turned 25.

Next spring I turn 50.

Then my husband and I celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.

The jubilee year then closes with my youngest son turning 21 at the end of the coming summer.

A big year, a huge year. A year pregnant with possibilities, or for my overthinking anxiety-depressed way of being in this world, a year that is hollering "danger, danger! incoming ordinance!" or something like that.

But I'll tell you, something this fraught election year has taught me is that you don't have to stay down when life knocks you down. Or you know, hit the dirt before life even has a chance to knock you down.

Hillary Rodham Clinton began her senate career at just about this stage of life. OK, she was maybe a little more successful on the achievement scene than I've been so far. But still. She got knocked down and blasted out of the water, and held underwater and rolled off a jeep as it careened down mountains and well, she was not going to take any of it with her mouth filled with dirt. She gets back up and starts again, over and over and over.

If she can, so can I.

Here's my "spit the dirt out and start marching toward the next good thing" plan:

• I'm going to transcribe every scrap of idiocy I've ever written into one big document and pay attention while the drivel flows through my fingers. For decades I've been writing in journals and on big yellow pads and in composition books; dozens and dozens of writing classes worth of words with prompts and exercises and half a dozen books I've started and almost never finished that produced something with ink and paper. I'm interested to hear what I wrote.
  
• At the same time I'm going to cover a decade in a month and try to recall everything I can about myself during that decade: what did I dream about, where did I spend my time, who were my heroes, what scared me. That means November is 0-10, December is 11-20, January is 21-30, February 31-40 and March is 41-50. My birthday is in May so it gives me time to write a summary or an action plan or get hit by a car somewhere in there or something. This scares me to death. But I am curious to see who I was because maybe that will help me know who I am. I'm not likely to share much of this, but who knows? Maybe.
  
• At some point in this process I am going to start a new blog/website/social media thing of some kind. Not to monetize my writing and other work, but to just be out in the world in a way that I like to be. I miss the old blog world when we all had those few blogs we read every day and we kept tabs on each other aside from the blog. We've moved on from that world, but I do still have things to say and I want to do that in a place that doesn't feel like I'm going backwards. I had hoped to have that piece ready by today, but then life happened. So it will happen later. Maybe. 

There it is. My golden jubilee year, complete with accountability post to be sure I don't forget what I meant to do.

May I learn just who I am and what it is I mean to do here with this life, or what's left of it.